I’ve been thinking about art history a lot this year as I tunnel through my art-related graphic novel. As dorky and low-rent as most of the tableaus in the video are, it’s surprising to me how much power several of them have; producing almost a shock of recognition. (This is something Michel Gondry really understands too—that it doesn’t have to be serious or slick to deliver a punch).

I’ve been thinking of cartooning as a kind of visual compression algorithm lately. They travel in such a simple, reduced state, but when unpacked in the mind of the viewer, even a few simple lines can yield a huge set of ideas and emotions.

We’re looking at live action in the case of the video, but I think the effect might be similar.

It’s been almost a century since the real-life Rube Goldberg started creating his ingenious cartoon machines on America’s funny pages, but his place in pop culture is as secure as ever.

Everybody sends out ripples in life, but some are more pronounced than others. I think most artists (unless they’re Buddhists?) like the idea that their own ripples will travel for a long time, but you can never predict exactly what shape they might take.

We finally saw the “Mattress” episode of Glee on TiVo last night and Ivy and I were happy to see the silent pianist “Brad” get more face time.

Brad Ellis is actually part of the musical production team for the show, but I remember him from my own High School back in Lexington, MA, and before that, in Sunday School, where he had a habit of bopping me on the head with Hymnals while Bill McKibben and I argued politics.

I’m taking this week off from everything but drawing and doing Christmas-related stuff with the family. Look for more posts next week.

We celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, and Ivy’s B-Day all in December, so life can get pretty hectic around here this time of year, but for those of you feeling a bit low on holiday cheer for whatever reason, I offer the above wonderfully insane video from many years ago (thanks to our friend Tom) as the secret to all happiness in the universe.

Just to answer another frequently asked question: Yes, I am aware of Scott McCloud Space Angel, the primitive kids’ cartoon that ran for two years in the early ’60s, ending when I was only 4 years old. I distinctly remember thinking, “Hey! He has the same name as me!” (sort of — my legal name is spelled a bit differently) and “Wow this animation is terrible” but it’s been a long time, so who knows?

And yes, the great Alex Toth worked on the show, so the drawings aren’t bad, though the creepy mouths still look wrong, wrong, wrong (Space Angel used the same “Synchro-Vox” technique as on the equally terrible Clutch Cargo).

That these things are still out there on the Web, and might be forever, is both wonderful and terrifying. Click if you dare.

It’s fascinating though, after seeing the barrage of ideas, words, and techniques flying out of NYC in every direction, to watch the aging Moebius silently, confidently, picking up his pen, putting it to the screen, and simply drawing.

Kseniya Simonova’s remarkable sand painting video has been viewed by eight million people, so I’m guessing a lot of you have already seen it, but just in case, here it is one more time.

There’s this weird thing that happens where if enough people recommend a link to me, I figure I don’t need to blog about it, because everyone has already seen it. Still, eight million out of six billion isn’t exactly full saturation.

Some of the recommendations came with an “is this comics?” heading, prompting my usual answer: “I don’t think so, but it’s still cool!”

We’re getting close to the end of a decade and a lot of people have been trying to sum up the experience. Short of putting “B.O.B.” on endless repeat, I think a big part of what’s made this decade interesting can be summed up pretty nicely in the phrase “Ukraine’s Got Talent.”